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Special thanks to our guest speakers on this episode, whose border stories we gratefully share with their consent: Jenneba Sie-Jallok, Loraine Masiya Mponela, Ambreen Hai, and Gaura Narayan.

We recorded this episode at the brilliant “Hostile Environments and Hospitable Praxes” conference, organised by Dr Rachel Gregory Fox at the University of Kent, UK, on 23-24 June 2025. Thank you, Rachel!

As we started to think about actually doing a podcast, we relied heavily on Stacey Copeland and Hannah McGregor’s A Guide to Academic Podcasting (2021).

Our amazing podcast editor is Steve Woodward, also known as The Podcasting Editor, without whom Gillian would sound like Moira Rose.

Gillian and Zalfa quote from previous episodes: here’s a full list.

Zalfa and Gillian quote from Jacques Derrida’s Of Hospitality (translated by Rachel Bowlsby, to whom Gillian refers later in the episode).

Zalfa quotes Tiziano Bonini’s essay “Podcasting as a Hybrid Cultural Form Between Old and New Media” and Michelle Hilmes’ essay “But Is It Radio? New Forms and Voices in the Audio Private Sphere”, both in The Routledge Companion to Radio and Podcast Studies (2022).

Sara Ahmed writes about “the feminist ear.”

Canadian poet David W. McFadden’s collection Great Lakes Suite (1997) inspired the dots and dashes of our podcast’s name [and Zalfa’s brief foray into Morse Code]. Gillian references his work a few times in this episode, including the line “the dots and dashes [...] glistening in the waves” (p.192).

Elizabeth Povinelli’s essay, “The Governance of the Prior” (2011)

Gillian mentions Immanuel Kant's Perpetual Peace (1795)

Mireille Rosello’s book Postcolonial Hospitality: The Immigrant as Guest (2002)

The material in this podcast is for informational purposes only. The personal views expressed by the hosts and their guests on the Borders Talk podcast do not constitute an endorsement from associated organisations.

Thanks to the School of Arts, Media and Communication at the University of Leicester for the use of recording equipment, and to the School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies at the University of Nottingham for financial support.

Music: “Corrupted” by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

Edited by Steve Woodward at podcastingeditor.com

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The Urban Dictionary’s definition of “tsunamied” is very much not what Zalfa intended. In fact, she had to look it up on reading this entry in the show notes, and wishes she had turned on safe search.

For more on vulnerability, check out Judith Butler’s Precarious Life (2004), Martha Fineman’s “The Vulnerable Subject: Anchoring Equality in the Human Condition” (2008), Lauren Berlant’s Cruel Optimism (2011), Susan Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor (1978) and Regarding the Pain of Others (2003), and Polly Atkin’s Some of Us Just Fall (2023).

For more on the social model of disability, read Mike Oliver’s The Politics of Disablement: A Sociological Approach (1990). Read more about the origins of the social model at the National Disability Arts Collection and Archive.

Wayde Compton’s description of the Canada-US border as a “strait razorous border” is a pun on the Georgia Strait, a body of water interrupted by the Canada-US/British Columbia-Washington State borders. Read more in 49th Parallel Psalm.

The International Boundary Commission’s photo of the Canada-US border is very telling. As is this photo of the Mexico-US border.

The material in this podcast is for informational purposes only. The personal views expressed by the hosts and their guests on the Borders Talk podcast do not constitute an endorsement from associated organisations.

Thanks to the School of Arts, Media and Communication at the University of Leicester for the use of recording equipment, and to the School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies at the University of Nottingham for financial support.

Music: “Corrupted” by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

Edited by Steve Woodward at podcastingeditor.com

Send us a Message

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch is available for purchase here, at your local independent bookstore, or check out your local library. It won the Booker Prize in 2023. (Read an article by Gillian about the Booker Prize.)

Booker Prize chair Esi Edugyan described it as "claustrophobic"; Lynch called it "an attempt at radical empathy."

We mentioned Métis author Cherie Dimaline's novels The Marrow Thieves (2017) and Hunting by Stars (2021).

We referred to the Indian Residential School system in Canada. Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their communities, and separated from their families, communities, and cultures in favour of a colonial "education." The 2015 Final Report of Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission described this as cultural genocide. Read the Final Report and the Calls to Action.

The westernmost point of Europe is Cape Roca, Portugal.

The surge of applications for Irish citizenship after Brexit.

The attempt to introduce mandatory military service in the UK under Rishi Sunak.

The border-crossing powers of The Sound of Music (1965) had a lasting impact on both Gillian and Zalfa.

Refugee Council resource on the "small boats" issue exercising UK politics.

Gillian briefly channels Sophia in The Golden Girls.

The Peace Arch.

Prophet Song is about families in a time of crisis. In the real world, please consider donating to Watermelon Relief, All Our Relations, or Beit El Baraka.

The material in this podcast is for informational purposes only. The personal views expressed by the hosts and their guests on the Borders Talk podcast do not constitute an endorsement from associated organisations.

Thanks to the School of Arts, Media and Communication at the University of Leicester for the use of recording equipment, and to the School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies at the University of Nottingham for financial support.

Music: “Corrupted” by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

Edited by Steve Woodward at podcastingeditor.com